Andrea Dovizioso will all be 24 when
the green light goes at Qatar; and (rather
irritatingly, as Valentino has several times
joked) Jorge Lorenzo is just 22.
By this measure, Ben Spies at 25 had
better get a hurry on.
At the other end of the scale, the
youngest rider in the class is rookie Aleix
Espargaro, aged 20.
There never was what might be called 'a
gentler time' in motorbike racing ... it's not
that kind of sport. But it doesn't seem that
long ago that 250 World Champion and
500 front runner Christian Sarron described
to me how he had discovered that he had
a talent for riding motorcycles . . . when he
turned out to be faster than his teenage
pals when they were riding on the road.
A number of other stars of the time had
similar beginnings. In other words, riding
motorcycles fast on the road came before
racing.
It's very different now: there's not a rider
on the grid who has not been racing since
his early teens, if not sooner. Commonly
they started riding at five or six years old,
and competing not much later.
This trend was begun by the first wave of
American stars, and it has to do mainly with
opportunity. Not just the availability in the
1960s of a new generation of minibikes,
but also a boom in places to race them.
In California it was mini dirt-tracks, in
Italy and Japan holiday go-kart tracks
served the same purpose. Later, Spain led
the way with special one-make series for
pre-teens on real race-tracks. Then came
the Red Bull Rookies Cup, in 2007. Rather
shockingly, this put riders as young as 13
on real grand prix bikes (privateer-level
KTM 125s) on real grand prix circuits,
racing in front of real grand prix crowds.
Old-timers wondered if it was a step too
far: the kids took to it in their hundreds,
turning up from far and wide to take part
in special selection riding tests, under the
stern eye of Alberto Puig and two-stroke
guru and KTM designer Harald Bartol.
The project grew to include a US series,
although a fatal accident may have been
why the US branch abandoned it after
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